


Both Have Sharp Teeth

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Series: Flarrow Femslash Week 2015 [9]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5447111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patty Spivot knows she wants to be a Jaeger pilot as soon as the program is announced. Shawna Baez knows being a Jaeger pilot is a better option than serving time.</p><p>They're drift compatible--no matter how viciously they fight with each other.</p><p>(Written for Flarrow Femslash Week: Day Four)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both Have Sharp Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from that quote from Black Widow: Name of the Rose; "Wolves and girls. Both have sharp teeth."
> 
> (I'm not really sure this counts as a piece for day four? but day four is when I posted it, so that's what I'm going with)

Patty Spivot was fourteen the first time a Kaiju attack was shown on the news. She remembers—there were the red marks on her knees from the carpet she was kneeling on, and the smell of the chicken her mother was baking in the kitchen. She was inches from the television, her eyes as wide as saucers. “Have you ever seen something like this, Mom?” she’d asked, something bubbling in her that felt like… like the world she’d read about was colliding into hers, like adventure was at her fingertips and all she had to do was reach out and grab it.

She was fifteen when her fascination turned into hatred, when her dad was on the coast for an investigation and wound up buried in the rubble of Kaiju devastation with thousands of other souls.

She was nineteen when the Jaeger program was announced. She remembers—there was the rain pounding down onto the sidewalk around her as she stared at the news through the window of some bar, and the guy who ran into her back and shoved her inches closer to the glass. Her mind was full of static, her heart pounding a rhythm that sounded nothing like _ba-dump_ and everything like _here’s your chance, Patty_.

She was twenty-one when she graduated college.

She was only three days older when she signed her life away.

***

Shawna Baez was thirteen when her mother died in a car accident that her father caused. She remembers—there were blood and smoke hanging in the air, the smell of gasoline thick on her tongue, and her sister’s screams ringing in her ears, far away and too close, all at once. She had to be cut out of the vehicle, her leg caught between the crumpled door and the seat of the car. “Have you seen my mom?” she’d asked, something bubbling in her that felt like… like her entire world was fracturing, fractalling, spinning away from her in ever smaller pieces that she’d never be able to pull back together no matter how hard she tried.

She was eighteen when her fourth set of foster parents kicked her out, when she decided it wasn’t worth worrying about the giant monsters in the ocean since she was more likely to get shanked by a kid after her empty wallet.

She was twenty-one when she burned the last of her bridges. She remembers—there was a smooth talking guy with lips that tasted like mint and empty promises, and a hard-eyed girl with a knife hidden in her jeans who told her a gun was just a prop. Just for show, just to scare the guy, and the convenience store wasn’t going to get them much but something was _something—_ and instead she walked away because she could do better on her own.

She was twenty-two when she was arrested.

She was only three hours older when they offered her the chance to serve instead of serving time.

***

“There’s no way we’re drift compatible,” Shawna tells the Commander, fingers clenched tight into fists. “She’s a Midwestern blonde with daddy issues and a hero complex. I don’t care what your tests say; I can’t fight with her.”

He looks at her, this girl who carved out her own heart so no one else could, and he tells her, “You don’t have a choice, Baez.”

“Respectfully, sir, I think there’s been a mistake,” Patty says to the Commander, hands clasped tightly behind her back. “She’s a small time criminal with daddy issues and a superiority complex. I don’t know why your testers think we’re drift compatible.”

He looks at her, this girl who tore apart her life in pursuit of revenge she can never have, and he tells her, “Spivot, I feel quite confident in assuring you they’re right.”

***

They fight like wolves, on the mats and in the dining hall—they know each other better than they want to admit, know just how to hurt, how to take their teeth to the jugular and rip out each other’s throats. Shawna leaves a sparring session, blood dripping from her nose, Patty’s satisfied gaze trained on her back—Patty flees halfway through lunch, tears that will never be shed sparkling in her eyes, Shawna’s vicious grin dogging her footsteps.

They scream and claw and half of the base watches them, wary eyes and whispering lips. “Why won’t he just reassign them,” they murmur. “Or, why won’t they just agree to a truce?”

(The other half of the base sits in on their practice runs in the Jaeger simulators, and that half keeps their mouths shut.)

A Category Two Kaiju breaches, and Reliant Renegade’s wolves are finally set loose on something other than each other. The battle is over in minutes; the criminal and the cop’s daughter work as a seamless team, covering weaknesses instead of exploiting them, intimately familiar with the rhythms of each other’s attacks after weeks of being on the receiving end.

Whispering lips fall silent when they reemerge from their cage of steel and copper wiring—they drip with sweat, their teeth bared in smiles, and they move in perfect tandem. Half of the base is shocked when Patty leaps into Shawna’s arms at the bottom of the stairs, stunned when Shawna catches her. (Half of the base isn’t surprised at all.)

Kissing Shawna is something like… like her world is tearing itself apart again, a sliver of normalcy kicking and screaming and demanding to be noticed as it forces its way into a world made of robots and monsters. It’s like her heart is pounding out a song that sounds nothing like _ba-dump_ and everything like _this is where we’re meant to be_.

Kissing Patty is like… like she’s cut herself on enough sharp edges trying to pull her world back together that she understands how to hold the shards, like she’s figured out how to keep the important ones close to her chest. It’s as if she knows that she can never stop worrying about the monsters that come out of the sea, now that she’s holding a fast-talking girl whose lips taste like blood and possibilities.

Fighting with each other is—it’s all of that, and it’s also adventure and survival and vengeance and desperation and a thousand other things that leave them  sweating, bruising, bleeding, _smiling_.

(These are the early days of the program; their Jaegar is toxic, but so are they.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still taking prompts, although I probably won't be able to answer any until Sunday. Hit me up at either lisasneeze or weekend-conspiracy-theorist!


End file.
